Violations of Democracy in Mass Organisations

Written:Written not later than September 3 (16), 1917Published:First published inLenin Miscellany VII, 1928.

      Published according to the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 25,

      page308.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Wemust pass a resolution branding as afraud[1]worthy of
      Nicholas II such practices as those of the Soviet ofSoldiers’
      Deputies (the soldiers have one representative to every 500
      people, while the workers have
      1 : 1,000)[2]or the Trade Union
      Bureau (1 representative toamembers in the small unions and I toa-bmembers in the large ones).

Whatsort ofdemocratsare we if we tacitly put up with thisfraud?

Whatis wrong with Nicholas II, for that matter, who also
      “allowed”unequalrepresentation from the peasants and from
    the landowners??

Bytolerating such things, we are prostituting democracy.

Wemust pass a resolution demandingequalsuffrage (both in the
    Soviets and at trade union congresses), branding theslightestdeparture from equality as afraud—using exactly this
      word—asa Nicholas II method. This resolution of the plenary
    meeting of the Central Committee must be written in a language
    everybody can understand and spread in leaflet form among the mass
    of the workers.

Wecannot tolerate afraudof democracy if we call ourselves
    “democrats”. We are not democrats but unprincipled people if
    we tolerate this!!

[1]“Onerepresentative, everywhere, to an equal number
      of electors” is the ABC of democracy. Anything else is a
      fraud.
    —Lenin

[2]Inview of the elections to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies, the workers’ section of the Soviet on August 23
(September 5), 1917, raised the question of revising the system of
election to the Soviet under which workers elected one delegate
from 1,000 persons while soldiers elected one delegate from each
unit. As a result, the soldiers had a considerably greater number of
deputies to the Soviet than the workers. The workers’ section
adopted a resolution saying that the system of election to the Soviet
should be revised and organised on the principle of proportional
representation, that is, one delegate from every thousand voters.
The soldiers’ section, however, which met on August 25 (
September 7), voted down the proposal. The S.R.s succeeded in putting
through their own resolution, which left the electoral system
intact.